Mr Kanayo .F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Mrs Jane Karuku, President of Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), have both called for a continued global push for increased smart investments in Africa’s agriculture, both by governments and the private sector.
This was contained in a press release by IFAD made available to the Ghana News Agency on Saturday.
According to the release, after speaking at the Chatham House Food Security 2012 Sustainable Intensification: Miracle or Mirage conference, Nwanze and Karuku addressed a group of international media in London emphasizing that farming is a business and the private sector must fuel the development of Africa’s agribusiness in upgrading smallholder agriculture to meet demand from foreign and emerging markets in developing countries.
"Smallholders are a vast and under-utilized resource; these are the people we work with – whether smallholders, pastoralists or herders – not just to increase productivity, but to nurture the land, to improve their businesses and strengthen market access.IFAD supports projects that enable these farmers to feed themselves, educate their children and invest in the growth of their own communities.
"Rural people are not just aid recipients, they are partners. They must be part of the process of designing and realizing developing from the very beginning. Development efforts can only succeed when the people we serve are convinced that they will grow more food, earn more money and feed themselves better," the release cited Nwanze.
"Everything we do must be geared towards empowering smallholder producers, especially women enabling them to transit from subsistence farming to running their farms as profitable businesses, and to market their surpluses," the release quoted Karuku.
Karuku emphasized the critical role of agriculture to poverty reduction, improved food security and create a better future for all Africans, saying "Speaking as a citizen of Africa, who was born and brought up on a small farm, I believe that agricultural intensification and ecological farming are not contradictory concepts, but rather two approaches that can be used in a complimentary fashion to put Africa on a pathway towards attaining food security."
"What Africa needs is practical blend of locally appropriate farming practices, as well as new technologies brought about by on-going research efforts.
"But at the end of the day, any approach must be driven by the need to improve smallholder productivity while protecting – and even improving – the natural resource base.
"Sustainable agricultural intensification is an achievable, knowledge-intensive, and necessarily complex process of increasing agricultural productivity by building on and caring for farm- and landscape-level biodiversity," the release cited Karuku.
The release said both Nwanze and Karuku shared their optimism for Africa's future and the world’s ability to achieve food and nutrition security as African governments begin to implement policies that encourage both public and private investment in their agricultural sectors.
It stated that investments were being made that strengthen agricultural value chains – especially those involving staple foods – and that encourage private sector development and participation.
The release noted that new vibrant private/public partnerships are been created, and international investments are increasingly being aligned with Africa's priorities.
IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized UN agency based in Rome – the United Nations’ food and agriculture hub.
It works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes and determine the direction of their own lives.
AGRA is a dynamic partnership working across the African continent to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger.
Its programmes develop practical solutions to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment.
It advocates policies that support its work across all key aspects of the African agricultural value chain — from seeds, soil health and water to markets and agricultural education.
It works across sub-Saharan Africa and maintains offices in Nairobi, Kenya and Accra, Ghana.